


Wounded

by Stitchlips



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Definitely Isn't Using That Rag for Anything Untoward, Angst, Bucky Is a Sneaky Shit, Caretaker Winter Soldier, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, It's just a mess in here honestly, M/M, Maybe a Little Bit of Crack, No Serum Steve Rogers, Only Temporarily Though, Post-Canon, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sick Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stitchlips/pseuds/Stitchlips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets shot by a laser that makes his super soldier immune system temporarily go kaput.</p><p>The Winter Soldier is probably not the best bedside nurse, but he's all Steve's got.</p><p>For the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/collections/stevebuckyspringfling/profile">Steve/Bucky Spring Fling</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



The last thing Steve Rogers expected when he opens his eyes at one in the afternoon was to see The Winter Soldier sitting at the end of his bed with a bowl of soup that is literally almost bigger than his head.

For a long minute, Steve just stares at him. He has spent months – literal months – trying to track this man down. After SHIELD fell into chaos and the Avengers were left scrambling in the wake of it all, Sam and Steve had gone out together (with a certain redhead and a less certain blond occasionally popping up) to find Bucky, as promised. Currently, they were in London; there had been a few murmurs of a man with a metal arm moving around the city, plus a small Hydra outpost (they were literally everywhere, it was a nightmare) and crime had suddenly dropped an entire 25% within the month. Steve had known it had to be Bucky; he’d personally been on the other side of those eyes when he was pointing a gun at you, and had no doubt at all that that would be enough to make someone stop whatever shit they were doing and turn tail.

Steve would think of them as cowards if it was anyone but Bucky. Or maybe Natasha.

In any case, half asleep and in nothing but his boxers, the first thought that pops into his head upon seeing Bucky, knelt by his feet on the hotel’s scratchy comforter, is _that smells like chicken noodle soup. There’s not even a microwave in here._

If Bucky plans on telling him, he makes no visible move of it. He just sits there, with the soup, and Steve sniffles.

Oh, right. The sick thing.

The reason he was in bed right now, at _one o'clock pm_ , which would normally be blasphemy; even before they’d started looking for Bucky, he tried to be up before eight to get in his run and shower and be ready for the day. Nowadays, he was up by five-thirty every morning. He’d even woken up briefly earlier this morning before Sam had seen him with his eyes open, pointed, and said “ _No_ ,” like he was scolding a particularly unruly dog. “Bad Steve. Lay down.”

Steve had glared at him. “Grr,” he’d growled half-heartedly, and Sam had grinned at him before it fell away.

“I’m going out with Nat to look around a little more – only because you’re a stubborn grumpypants even more than usual when you’re like this, or I’d be staying here and making sure you didn’t cough yourself into a hernia. Can’t imagine you’d be good with a hernia.”

Steve winces, trying to imagine it and immediately wishing he hadn’t. “The point?”

“I’ll only be gone for a few hours. We’re just checking up on something near Baker Street. Heard there might be some activity from the Hydra post there and well. Better safe than sorry. Maybe we’ll run into your boy if there’s something really going on.” His smile returns, and he affects a London accent. “The game is on, Watson.”

If they saw Bucky without Steve… god. He didn’t know what he would do. Bucky had only paused in his attacks when Steve had been able to talk to him, before, and even that was after repeated attempts, and not fighting back at all. Steve tries to climb out of bed, immediately, and before Sam can even move to stop him, his head sways so bad he pitches face first from the blankets.

Well. Now he knew what the full force of his body weight felt against someone’s head. _Sorry, people I’ve punched in the face,_ he thinks, sincerely.

While Steve groans and holds his head, Sam sounds like he’s struggling between snickering and concern. “You’re out. Of. Commission, man. Just for a few… days. Or hours. Whichever. Your body is a wonderland.” He’s already bent to help Steve back into bed, and the blond mutters with upset as Sam presses his hand and then, alarmingly, his mouth to Steve’s forehead.

 Steve tries to rear back, but Sam holds him fast, pausing almost thoughtfully.

This doesn’t really feel like a kiss, and when he pulls back, Sam doesn’t look like he just did something weirdly intimate. He looks down at him and shrugs. “Lips are the most sensitive part of the human body. Or. That’s the excuse my momma gave me when I was a kid.” When Steve just stares, Sam shrugs again and cocks his head. “You’re warmer than earlier. You know where the medicine is.” He nods to the side table, in Steve’s reach, and the enormous glass of water there, too. “You can take more in 4 hours, but I’ll probably be back by then.” Sam smiles at him, softly, and tucks the covers over his chest. “Get some rest, man.”

 _Yeah. Okay._ “Yeah. Okay.”

Sam’s smile strains a little, but he just places a hand on Steve’s head and shakes it a little, very gently. “Trust me, okay?”

Steve thinks there are only a few things it’s a worse idea to say to him. “I do, Sam. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“It’s Bucky.” The way Sam looks at him makes Steve close his eyes and try not to screw up his mouth. “Yeah.”

He only relaxes when he hears the door open and close again.

He shouldn’t even be here.

When he dreams, it’s of the mission just two days before. Hydra agents swarm left and right like angry, leather-clad bees. Which is a weird analogy, but hey, he has a fever and maybe deserves to have some weird analogies. Anyway, they're angry bees with guns, and they all seem weirdly determined to shoot Steve more than any of the other three heroes that are currently coming at them from all angles. And, to be honest, the guns look weird. Not like... a pistol or a machine gun or whatever else guns villains usually had. These kinda looked like little laser guns - at least when pointed at Steve, anyway. They still shot bullets fine whenever one of the agents got overwhelmed and started trying to shoot Natasha off from around their neck (which was really funny to watch, if one ever got the chance - Natasha rode her enemies every chance she got. Wait. No. Don't tell her he said that).

But nope; when pointed at him, the guns inexplicably started shooting this weird gold beam. They bounced away when they came into contact with his shield, which was lucky, but even Captain America can defend himself against 40 guys all gunning to shoot him in the legs, which they had apparently decided was something they ought to have been doing the entire time.

Point was, they'd gotten him with the beam. One clean shot in the leg, and it was like... someone had shoved a cow brand into his calf. Heh.

No. It wasn't funny. Steve'd managed to push on, continue fighting, but it was _agony_. The Hydra agents all seemed confused when he rushed up to them and smashed his shield into their face after that. They saw the (glowing? _glowing_ ) wound in his leg and seemed to almost relax as he came closer, but that was a dumb thing to do.

_Bonk, bonk, bonk._

Steve had almost managed to forget about the laser wound, adrenaline pumping through his veins, but Sam certainly hadn't. As Steve knocked out the last agent, Sam landed beside him and bent, immediately reaching out to touch the scar in his leg that looked like sunshine was glowing out of it.

"Maaaan," he said, simply, and Steve could sympathize.

Natasha and Clint moved in a moment later, after double checking the entrances to the little underground bunker. Steve looked up as Clint fiddled with his wrist guards and frowned at his leg.

"Maaaan," he said, and Sam nodded wisely in agreement.

Natasha was pretty much the only helpful person on this team, Steve decided, as she frowned and told Clint and Sam to help Steve out of the bunker. "I'll check out these guns," she said, bending to pluck one from the hands of a twitching Hydra agent. As Steve was guided away from her, she opened up the magazine and frowned at the contents.

When she'd returned to the hotel room later that evening to the sight of the boys all playing cards (which Steve trounced them in every time - cards were his game, no matter the game. Suckers), she sighed and plunked into the free carpet space around the bed, and tossed the gun onto the comforter.

"New kinda weapon they were testing," she said, as if bored. "Not lethal, but..."

Steve watched as she hesitated, and frowned, suddenly worried. "But?"

"But it's gonna put you down for a little."

"Huh?" Nothing put him down.

'Huh' turned out to be something that was _supposed_ to destroy the super soldier serum in Steve's blood in an instant, weaken him and revert him, if not visibly, at least inwardly. Make him the weak, bird-boned creature he'd been before Erskine had made him... real. Sure, he'd still have the muscles... but the weak lungs, the crippling heart, the dilapidated immune system, the lack of an _inhaler_... muscles couldn't punch through the weaknesses in his own body.

He almost couldn't believe it, but one learned to trust whatever Natasha told them in confidence.

Steve stared at her, feeling this decidedly uncrippled heart thud in alarm, and she gave him a sympathetic look. "But, obviously, it didn't work." Her eyes drift to Clint, who is trying and failing to make a house of cards out of their discarded game. He notices her looking and eyes her warily from his peripheral vision, guarding the little house with one hand and working with the other. Natasha turns back to Steve. “But it _did_ lower your immune system. Temporarily, according to my sources.” ‘My sources’, those dastardly geniuses.

“Couldn’t you just say ‘Stark’,” deadpans Clint, looking deep in concentration as he tries to add a second story to his house. Natasha stares at him for a moment before tugging, once, on the comforter.

“Awwww, _cards_!”

“You’ll probably get sick for a day or two,” Natasha concludes simply, as Sam snickers softly in the background. “But as long as you get plenty of rest, you’ll probably get over whatever affects you faster than the normal person, anyway.” Steve continues to look at her, getting a sinking feeling in his stomach. A day or two felt monumental; that was a day or two that he could be out looking for Bucky, maybe finding him, maybe bringing him back to this hotel room and taking care of _him_. He couldn’t just be laying here, doing nothing, while Bucky was out there somewhere… cold, maybe scared, maybe mindless. Maybe not knowing who he was, still.

He couldn’t—he couldn’t—

Bucky appeared beside him and started climbing in his lap. “Stevie, Stevie, Steve,” he purred, and draped his arms around Steve’s neck.

The rest of the group faded into black and white and Steve rested his hands on Bucky’s waist, staring at him. He was wearing his old army uniform; his metal arm was still there, heavy against the blond’s shoulder where it lay, but his hair was cropped short, bright eyes glowing at him in the mid-day light from the window. He started nosing in Steve’s ear, tongue slipping out, and Steve felt his lashes flutter violently.

“Whuuh—Buck—”

“It’ll all be okay, Steve,” Bucky rumbled in his ear, and nipped at the shell of it. “There’s chicken. Don’t get hard. You’ll scare it away. Chickens are chicken. Obviously.”

“Oh. Yeah,” agreed Steve, and Bucky laughed and laughed and rolled his hips, and—

And then he’d woken up and there was Bucky and chicken and the tent in his pants might as well have made a _pppbbbbbtttttt_ sound with how fast it wilted.

Well. Okay. Maaaybe it didn’t wilt as fast as it might’ve when a guy who tried to kill you was sitting close enough to actually maybe see the boner if he was looking. Maybe.

But it was still Bucky, and he had that long hair and those bright eyes peeking out from behind it and his mouth was just a little open and his face was scruffy… and also _soup_. He had _soup_ and Steve was hungry, okay?

He was human. He was _human_.

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, the soup steaming in his hands, and Steve stares back.

Finally, he opens his mouth. “Bucky.”

Ah, yes. Eloquent. So much for Sam’s faith in him to always have a speech ready.

Bucky blinks, as if coming out of a trance, and then very gingerly holds out the bowl. “Can you hold this?”

Steve swallows. His hands, which had previously been sprawled under the covers, slowly come out from under the sheets and reach out, and immediately, he feels a sweat break out on his forehead. Being sick always made him feel gross and weak and wimpy, but he’d always thought that was because he was weak and wimpy to begin with. Apparently not.

Bucky’s eyes narrow at him as he says “yes. Yeah. Of course.”

“It was hard for me to get this soup in here past the guy with the bow,” says Bucky, sternly, and for some reason Steve feels like he’s misbehaving. “Can you hold it or not?”

Tiny alarm bells ring in Steve’s head. “Clint? Is he okay?”

With a sigh, a sigh that sounds so achingly familiar, and somehow so different from the monotone that colors the rest of Bucky’s words that Steve’s alarm bells start going full blast in his chest, the other man pulls the soup back into his lap and ignores Steve’s outstretched hands. “He’s fine. He’s posted as a guard outside the building. I snuck past him.” Bucky’s eyes pass over Steve, and the blond suddenly feels his heart start to thud. “I didn’t think you could get sick.” His eyes lift back up to Steve’s face (thank god the boner is gone by now, _thank you God_ ). “I don’t know a lot about you, but I was pretty sure about that.”

Oh. Oh man. _Don’t look at me like that_.

Steve feels his mouth twitch up in response, and gives a small shrug, trying to ignore the off-putting pound of his heart competing with the pound in his head. “You were right. Hydra. It’s only temporary. I’ll be fine in a little while.” _Maybe._

For some reason, some gleam in Bucky’s eyes flickers, and his eyes drop away. “Good.”

This feels impossible. It feels like he should have had to fight for this moment. It feels like he should have gone out to find Bucky, bring him in, track him down. And yet, here he is, in a hotel room in London—

Steve freezes. He doesn’t know why this hasn’t occurred to him yet, or why, exactly, it frightens him, but it might be something that rhymes with ‘Latasha Lomanoff’. “Bucky. There are other people that are staying in this room—they might be back any minute—”

For a second, his friend almost looks amused, but it is gone so quickly that Steve blinks and Bucky’s mouth is set back in dour contemplation, steam curling around his chin. “They’ll be out for a while. They found some evidence planted by Hydra and are following up on it.” Bucky’s eyes drift over Steve’s body again, like he’s looking for something. “You would know if you had checked your phone. Sam Wilson has sent somewhere between 5 and 6 text messages reassuring you he’ll be back soon and to remind you to take your medicine.” Bucky’s eyes are lingering somewhere near Steve’s waist, and Steve shifts a little, feels the phone that he normally would have set on the bedside table instead tucked in his pocket, where he’d left it when he fell asleep. He’s uncomfortable under the scrutiny if only because Bucky doesn’t seem to realize how intense it is. His eyes just keep coming back, calculated and thoughtful, roaming over him, like he’s some animal in a cage that maybe Bucky used to own as a pet.

Like he’s expecting something else, something other people have told him about, and is instead finding something… _other_.

Steve shivers, and Bucky’s gaze only seems to grow darker before he looks up into Steve’s eyes.

“You need to eat this soup,” he says. “Eating soup is what sick people do.”

“Okay,” says Steve, and holds out his hands.

Bucky stares at him for a long moment before pulling the bowl close to him with one hand – his metal hand, steady and solid and whirring, purring softly under the metal exoskeleton – and crawling closer using his other. It should look awkward, hobbling, but it doesn’t. Bucky is like a panther; every movement he makes crawls with danger and sex and grace, and where before Steve might’ve seen a housecat there was now a king of beasts.

Steve knows that when he starts waxing poetic in his own head things are bad. Very bad.

Bucky moves beside him and places the bowl smoothly in Steve’s lap. He probably could’ve done that from, you know, _over there_ , but. There’s something in the other man’s eyes that says he’s trying to gauge something. Steve does his best not to look frightened as he turns a smile his way, and while he knows he probably should be… he isn’t scared. He just takes the metal spoon (where in the world did Buck…?) and quietly swallows some broth into his mouth.

Ugh. He wishes it could’ve been any other time besides now, which is a selfish but entirely true thought. Why did he have to be sick right now? Sure, the adrenaline rush from seeing Bucky was still very much pounding in his veins, but also pounding in his veins was blood, rushing around in his head. His nose was stopped, in that fun alternative to having a snotty one (hooray, small blessings) and when he breathes, it’s through his mouth, or risk making that gross nose-blowing noise, and he is _not_ doing that around Bucky. Which is ridiculous.

 Bucky has seen him vomit; Bucky has been vomited on. _Bucky has worn a vomit-y shirt for two hours straight once because he wouldn’t leave you alone in the bathroom even though you kept telling him to._ Bucky didn’t get that Steve got embarrassed about being gross.

For a long time, Steve had thought that that meant Bucky didn’t get a lot of things Steve felt.

He was wrong.

Either way, this is a bad time for a happy reunion.

But that doesn’t seem to matter to Bucky. He’s still on the bed, but now he’s watching Steve mechanically eat the soup, legs crossed under him and hands crossed in his lap.

There’s an awkward silence for a moment, and then Bucky murmurs, softly, “You were always sick.” He reaches out, with the metal hand, his eyes flat. Steve doesn’t flinch, but his body tries to. That hand was the one that punched hardest, after all.

But no. The hand just touches a random spot along his jaw, thumb tipping Steve’s head up so gently that if someone had been two feet away they might not have noticed a difference. The back of one finger presses against Steve’s pulse point, and the gesture is so intimately familiar. He can almost hear his friend’s soft voice pressed to his ear, forehead to forehead as Bucky checked his heartrate. _“Deep breaths, Steve… I know I’m good-lookin’ but it ain’t nothin’ to get an attack over_. _”_

_“Shadup.”_

Steve can hardly breathe, and it isn’t because of the sickness that thuds in his stomach. “Buck…”

Bucky’s finger stays there, just touching, until he realizes that Steve’s stopped eating and it falls away, and his eyes go stern again. “Eat. When you finish it’s time for your medication.”

He turns and crawls up from the bed, moving around the bed towards the bedside table and rummaging around in it, through the 5,000 different medicines Sam has left him. He turns his head sharply when Steve’s spoon conspicuously stops clinking – so maybe he was staring, sue him – and makes a sound so close to a buffalo snorting that Steve can’t help himself.

He starts laughing, choked and maybe a little crazed and definitely kinda gross sounding, and covers his eyes with the hand not holding his bowl. Through the cracks in his fingers, he can see Bucky staring at him, dark hair hanging around his eyes and bent over the tiny drawer like a giant trying to use human furniture. The image only makes Steve laugh harder, tears starting to form at the edges of his eyes, and for a moment, through the blur in his vision, Steve thinks he sees Bucky’s mouth twitch.

There’s a smile, a small, real, teeny tiny smile for about two seconds before Steve’s laugh catches and he starts coughing; ugly, phlegm-y, and generally unappealing.

And the smile drops, gone, never existed, and Bucky is _right there_ on him. His flesh hand is on Steve’s forehead in an instant and he is bent low, eyes meeting his eyes, mouth so close to Steve’s coughing one that Steve is grossed out _for_ him. “Steve,” he says, and sounds urgent for the first time since entering the room, sounds _emotional_. “Steve.”

Guh. Ugh. _Ugh_. Breathe, you idiot, _breathe._

“I’m fine,” Steve says around his coughing, waving his free hand and only barely catching the jostling bowl from spilling soup all over the place with the other. “I’m okay, just…”

Bucky seems to ignore this completely, his hands coming to frame Steve’s face. Both. Like he doesn’t realize one is warm and flesh and the other is cold and hard and feels kinda good on his hot face, actually. Or maybe he doesn’t care. Steve has the sudden urge to tip his head and kiss the palm, kiss both palms, but he doesn’t, even as his own start to sweat.

 _Breathe_.

Bucky’s eyes are locked on his, and the pupils are small. They’re unfocused, almost, concentrated on something else, his breath coming soft and soothing and slow even though, through his right fingertips, Steve can feel his heart pounding. A glance in his peripheral vision sees Bucky’s Adam’s apple working. Steve has stopped coughing, but Bucky hasn’t moved away.

The blond doesn’t want to disturb the air, but he keeps breathing, his lungs too sputtery to stop.

And there is a long, long moment of Bucky just… not even really looking at him. Looking through him, seeing something else, but right there, so close that if Steve wanted to – no, if Steve let himself – he could kiss him. He could count the eyelashes, and he does, has time enough to do it twice while he lets Bucky work out whatever he is seeing. He sees freckles that Bucky has always had, since day one, and wants to touch them. This is Bucky, right here, right now, alive, and maybe not well, but sane enough to look at Steve and see someone who was trustworthy enough to hold this close.

But after a long time, Bucky still hasn’t moved, and he is starting to tremble.

And his pupils are still small, and his hands are starting to grasp and claw and hurt, and his breath is no longer collected and neat.

And Steve can’t have that. He can’t have him be scared when Steve is right here, ready to protect him, from anyone, anything, even his own mind.

He reaches up, the soup cool and mostly empty anyway, and places the tips of his fingers on Bucky’s cheekbone.

At first, there’s no reaction. “Buck,” Steve tries, gently tapping, but no dice.

It’s only when Steve’s fingers start to caress his face that Bucky’s eyes flicker, narrow, come back to themselves. His lashes flutter when Steve tells him, “I’m fine,” and by the time Steve’s hand is cupping his cheek, thumb brushing a piece of hair away from Bucky’s mouth, the brunet is locked on him again, breathing slowed to syrup.

The air between them changes.

Bucky’s hands are still holding Steve’s face, but the metal one slowly lets go now, dropping to brace his upper body where he’s still leaned over the bed, and, consequently, over Steve. The mattress yields obediently to the dig of metal digits. Steve tries not to think about it.

Steve also really, really wishes he wasn’t sick right now.

“Deep breath,” says Bucky, and Steve obeys, because apparently it’s not just mattresses that go all squishy under his hands.

His pupils are dark, and not small anymore.

In. Out.

“Another.”

In. Out. Bucky’s mouth is very pink.

“Another.”

Steve swallows, embarrassingly loudly, and Bucky’s eyes drop to follow the movement of his throat before lifting back up.

“Are you okay?”

Wow. What a question. _Define okay_ , he almost says, but doesn’t, because he isn’t really sure what caused that panic attack back there but being a flirtatious smartass probably wasn’t the best course of action.

“I’m okay.”

And Bucky lets him go, other hand falling to the comforter, face still close enough to make Steve’s nerve endings go _aaaaAAAAAHHHHH_ and eyes still just… insanely dark. He licks his lips, and Steve definitely doesn’t wonder if he tastes like chicken noodle soup right now.

And then Steve sneezes.

Bucky rears back and his entire face scrunches and Steve covers his face with both hands, mortification making his voice go up, up, up, squeaking and apologizing as Bucky lifts up the gray hoodie he’s wearing to wipe his face off on it. “Yuguugh,” he says, scrubbing, and Steve would really like to replace the soup that’s left in the bowl right now.

“I’m so sorry,” he chokes, eyes watering with horror, and Bucky yanks down his hoodie and just looks at him.

His mouth is twitching all over the place, and Steve can’t tell if it’s in a good way. They stare at each other.

Bucky turns around and goes in the hotel bathroom and Steve shrinks under the blanket, the mostly-empty bowl sliding from his lap and into the spot Bucky had vacated minutes ago.

If he could get sick, maybe he could also die.

A man could hope.

 

\--

 

When Bucky comes out of the bathroom, he is just wearing a black t-shirt and his dark denim pants, the hoodie draped over his shoulder like a dirty towel. His hair is pulled back into a bun that looks mostly like he just tied it into a knot rather than use a ponytail holder, and his face looks mostly the same, kinda scrunched, but, well. Cleaner. _God_.

Steve is still mostly under the blankets, hiding from the rest of his life and this confrontation.

He’d checked his text messages, and replied in kind.

**Sam: hey sleeping sicky its all good no sign of buck-o yet**

**Sam: might be a little late we might have found smthn**

**Sam: we found smthn!!!! b a few hours take ur meds**

**Sam: not bucky but im sure hell show up**

**Sam: ur probably asleep and that’s why ur not answering me or it better be mister if u tried to follow us im going 2 KICK UR ASS SICK OR NOT**

Steve had kinda managed to smile at that one, and texted back

**Steve: im fine and still here. good luck. taking my meds like a good boy**

Sam doesn’t answer, but Steve figures he’s busy and doesn’t worry. Mostly, he’s just guilty about not mentioning Bucky.

But… not yet. That’s more a face to face thing, anyway. Right?

Besides. Sam can’t come back when Steve is still too horrified to come out from under the blankets.

He is a soldier who has stared down gods, but is also a _human_ who just sneezed in his best-friend-slash-cute-boy’s face. _You try both and tell me which is worse_ , Steve thinks angrily towards the sky.

The sky kinda just laughs at him.

The room is very quiet all of a sudden, and Bucky has moved out of his line of sight (the small sliver of it that peeking from beneath blankets allows) and towards the end of the bed.

“Steve,” he says.

Steve cringes and slinks. “Bucky.”

“You are the biggest punk. You just sneezed in my goddamn face, an’ now you ain’t even got the common decency to help me clean up.”

Steve’s head jerks out of the blankets, and Bucky is staring at him, a small smile quirking one side of his mouth.

“Buck?” he sputters, and coughs, once, and… no. Bucky’s smirk falls away into a softer smile, less flirty, less _Bucky Barnes of the one-oh-seventh_ and back to _shy Soviet soldier murderer guy_.

“I thought that might get you out of the blankets,” he says, moving closer, and rummaging through the dresser again, pulling out two different bottles. “You have a moderately high temperature; approximately 100.7 degrees. You also have a mild cough, chest congestion, and throat inflammation, and…” His eyes drift over to where Steve is staring at him, stricken at the sudden change that had come and gone. Steve feels slapped, vaguely tricked, and Bucky looks at him for a moment before the tight lines of his face loosen into something that looks pained. A strained smile pulls his lips. “And you’re gonna be just fine, alright, St—?” He cuts himself off, and looks back at the bottles in his hands. He falls silent and stills, eyes downcast.

“What are you doing?”

It pops out of him before he can stop it, and yet Steve is glad he asked. He needs to know. This isn’t fair; he needs to know if Bucky is really in there, or if it’s just the Winter Soldier _pretending_ to be Bucky, or…

Or what.

Bucky doesn’t say anything for a minute, looking down at the bottles. It’s only when Steve prompts him with his name that the other looks up at him, and the smile is gone, replaced with wide, uncertain eyes and a tight mouth. He swallows, looking at him, and then down at his chest.

“I just… I just heard that you were sick, and no one was here… I was watching, and everyone left but you, and I…” His mouth moves but no words come out for a moment. “I was… I just needed to be sure… you were _always_ sick.” His eyes meet Steve’s again. “Weren’t you?”

Bucky stares at him, obviously just as stricken as Steve is, and the blond hugs his elbows, scooching up in bed a little.

“Yeah. I was, Buck. I was always sick before the serum.” He swallows and rests his head back against the headboard, closing his eyes. He can still feel Bucky watching him, and it sears like fire over his skin. “You… the accent. Did you just fake that?”

He’s not being sensitive. He feels ashamed of this question, but the answer comes easier.

“Not… exactly. It’s always there. It’s always been there… I think. I just… am used to… not. They didn’t like it.” Bucky fiddles audibly with the bottles, and then audibly stops himself. “I… I don’t mean to just slip back out of it… it’s there, and I _wanna_ keep… I just…” A frustrated noise comes next. “For you.” A pause. “It’s just. Hard.”

“Okay,” says Steve, and opens his eyes again, looks at Bucky, smiles.

Tension bleeds from the room.

Bucky almost smiles back.

And then it morphs into a real one, still small, still not one Steve recognizes, really, but a real smile. Bucky gently tips the pills into Steve’s hand and gives him the glass of water, his eyes taking on a soft kind of quality that makes Steve’s stomach flip flop. “Let me take care of you,” he says, and wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. No _way_ Bucky remembers what he used to do most times after saying that—

Only, whoop, maybe he does, because an instant later Bucky’s eyes get huge and he goes fluorescent, and he turns away, fiddling with the knob on the dresser and clearing his throat. “You know. Make you feel better.”

When his shoulders just tense up further after he realizes what he’s now _double implied_ , Steve starts snickering again, a little less violently than before, covering his burning face with both hands and doing everything in his power not to break into coughs again. It’s worth it when Bucky turns to look at him again and the gleam in his eyes is almost as bright as the blush on his face.

“Stop,” he says, and Steve tries, he really does, but Bucky’s shoulders start to shake even though the smile hasn’t grown an inch. Steve can tell he’s struggling because his nose is twitching like he’s trying to control his breathing. “ _Stop_ ,” he demands a second later, and Steve can’t, he _can’t_ , and it feels so good to _laugh_. When had he _laughed_ like this in the past three years? His head tips back and it’s really more of like an ugly, whining caterwauling, but it feels _good_ , even past the gross in his chest.

Bucky doesn’t laugh, looking almost as mortified as Steve must’ve looked ten minutes ago, but his mouth is twitching again, and now it’s definitely the good kind.

Steve’s smile fades a little after a moment, and he swallows, watching him. “You don’t… I mean. I’m not really _that_ sick… you don’t have to…”

The look he receives in return for that is so panicked, so controlled, Steve stops speaking immediately.

“I know,” Bucky tells him, his eyes flicking everywhere but directly into Steve’s own gaze. “I know I don’t have to.” His jaw hangs loose for a moment before he looks down at his hands. He clenches his metal fist. “But I think I need to.”

Steve doesn’t argue.

 

\--

 

Bucky watches him take his medicine and then goes to the bathroom again. He comes back with a damp washcloth and a nervous look, and sits down on the bed, reaching out with the washcloth as if automatically.

He swipes it across Steve’s forehead, and Steve blinks at him. As if understanding the question Steve is too nervous to ask, he licks his lips, and looks at a vague place over Steve’s shoulder. “This is one of the first things I remembered. You. Being sick. And me… my hands. My… taking care of you. Cooling you down. You were always too hot during the day… too cold at night.” This time, when he blushes, Steve doesn’t draw attention to it.

He knows how they used to conserve body heat.

He wonders how much Bucky knows about the ways they’d make it warm in the first place. There were some things a mouth could do that could have kept Steve alive in a blizzard, he is one hundred percent sure.

 _Inappropriate_.

Bucky pats the side of Steve’s face with the rag, and even though this is really _nothing_ compared to how Steve used to get sick (he hasn’t puked once), it still feels good. Maybe it’s more the person who’s holding the rag, really.

Steve doesn’t care to think too hard about it.

Bucky’s eyes return to him, searching, and when Steve smiles a little at him, the crease between his brows loosens up. “I’m… some things are still blurry. Don’t know if I imagined them or not.” His hand – the flesh one, he notices – moves down to pat at Steve’s neck. Steve lets his head tip back and tries not to make gross nose noises as he sniffles and sighs in soft relief.

“Feels good,” he mumbles, eyes slipping closed, and Bucky stills for a moment. Then he continues, wiping the rag under Steve’s throat and then around to his nape. Steve rumbles, hoping that by audibly letting Bucky know that what he’s doing is nice, comforting, Bucky will be more comfortable too.

And maybe he knows Bucky always likes things being… well. Audibly… confirmed.

_You are a bad person. Bucky is vulnerable and is in **no** condition to—_

Steve reminds his conscience of the way Bucky had been staring at him right before the sneeze, and it shuts up, frowning disapprovingly in the corner of Steve’s brain.

 _Still_.

Yeah. He knows he’s right. He’s being a bad person, trying to subtly draw Bucky out like this. It feels like a tricky trick, and Steve has never really been good at the whole ‘covert ops’ thing—

Bucky’s washcloth brushes over Steve’s mouth, and Steve’s eyes flutter open before he looks down at the other man, who is staring at him.

Bucky looks flushed, and he looks away. “I couldn’t tell if you were… passing out, or. Sorry. I just. I thought I used to—”

Steve swallows, and shifts in bed a little. “No, you… you did. Whenever I started to doze off whenever I got a concussion. Ah.” Bucky had a myriad of ways to keep Steve awake, even before they started getting intimate. The cold water on his mouth was one of them – an annoyance tactic, really, but. Either way. Steve gives him a tentative smile, and Bucky is suddenly biting his lip.

“I just lied. I had no idea if I did that or not. Before. I shouldn’t do that like that, I’m… I just wanted to see what you’d do.”

Oh. Well then.

The Brooklyn accent is beautifully present right now, and Steve drinks it in like water as his heart starts to thud again. This cannot be good for a healing man.

“We were… just. Just to be sure. To be sure I’m not…” The half noise that comes out of Bucky could maybe be interpreted as a laugh if you asked a bunch of skeletons. “Fantasizing it all. Imagining it or whatever.”

“Like Peeta and Katniss,” says Steve automatically, “real or not real,” and when Bucky just stares at him, wet washcloth held against Steve’s clavicle, there is a glorious moment when Steve has made a pop culture reference that someone else doesn’t get. But Bucky is starting to get that “I regret everything and am now shutting down” look, and Steve quickly shakes his head.

“I mean. Sorry. Yes. We. If you mean we were… then. Yes. It was… only for around a year… we… we had no idea either of us were even… but yes.” Steve watches Bucky’s reaction. He mostly just looks thoughtful, and maybe a little relieved.

“Okay… good. I was…” The half-laugh again. “I was. Going crazy.”

 _Me too_ , Steve thinks, and doesn’t say.

“Anyway. Um. Good. Good to know where all this…” Bucky gestures vaguely to himself with his metal hand and then seems too embarrassed to go on. “Yeah.”

 _All this what?_ Steve thinks, and again doesn’t say, though he might be trying to communicate it with his brain.

No dice.

Bucky continues cooling his face down with the rag, and then pulls back, smiling a little at him. Immediately, Steve feels his heart go double time the double time it was already doing. _Double double time._ Definitely not good for him, but he wants more. Bucky looks at him for a minute, and then his smile fades. “You need to get some rest.”

Woah. No. No. He can’t possibly sleep when Bucky is _here_ , when _finally_ Bucky is _here_ and not violent and doesn’t want to murder him, or… or.

Steve stares. “What? Why?”

For a second, Bucky just looks bemused. “Because you’re sick and actually need to rest?”

 No sir. “Will you be here when I get up?”

And ah. There it is. The answer to end all answers.

Bucky gives him a long look, and then looks down, fingers clenching. “If I say yes, will you go to sleep?” he asks, quietly, and Steve sees the loophole immediately.

“Only if you mean it,” he says, with a certain amount of defiance, and Bucky sighs, shaking his head and a sad smirk tweaking one side of his mouth. He leans against the hotel bed’s baseboard and looks down at Steve’s feet.

“You know your friends aren’t going to be happy to see me here. When you’re sick. And prone. And very, very easy to kill.”

“You won’t kill me. You didn’t do it when you knew nothing about me.” Steve’s voice is as firm as he can make it while he is inwardly panicking. “They have to know that.”

“They don’t,” snaps Bucky in reply, his voice instantly just as firm. “They still think I could possibly kill you on sight. If they knew I was in here right now, they’d have their Clint Barton shoot me in both legs and interrogate me until I bled.” He curls his lip back and flashes his teeth, and Steve feels helplessness crawl up in his throat. He starts to climb out of bed, and Bucky moves forward instantly, stopping him before he can get more than a calf out.

Turns out, that’s a distraction all its own.

Bucky pauses when he sees the laser wound ripped over the back of his leg, and stares, eyes wide. “Oh,” he says.

Steve swallows and looks at him, feels a cough shake up in his chest, and bends double, hacking and feeling his head pound, hard. The medicine is finally starting to kick in, and his head swims despite himself. He doesn’t _want_ to get tired… and of _course_ Bucky had given him night-time medication, and Steve had been too _stupid_ to notice, he was so stupid, so _stupid…_

“Bucky,” he pleads around his fit, and the brunet looks up at him, his eyes so conflicted it makes Steve’s heart hurt.

There is a struggle in Bucky’s face, body language, entire being. Steve aches to soothe the pain, aches to hold him, but instead, Bucky stays a safe distance away for another few moments.

He looks down at his hands, at the killing machine attached to one shoulder that had touched Steve so gently within the past hour, at the flesh hand that still had dirt and red beneath the nails.

“Bucky,” Steve begs, still half sat up in bed. “ _Please_.”

And Bucky breaks, moving to sit on the bed again beside Steve.

Relief shivers in Steve’s bones, and he relaxes, leaning back against the headboard and noticing with some discomfort that his breathing has picked up again. The washcloth would be welcome right now, but Bucky put it on the bedside table, and now he’s on the wrong side to take it up again.

They don’t touch, but Bucky looks like he wants to as he stares down at the wound.

“I couldn’t get to you fast enough. The bunker,” he adds, eyes flashing. “I tried… but I couldn’t…”

Steve swallows, and reaches down, searching for Bucky’s hand before he can stop himself. “It’s okay, Bucky… it didn’t hurt that bad… m’fine.” Bucky doesn’t seem to be actively avoiding his grip, but it still takes way too long to find the warmth of his fingers. He twines their hands up immediately when he does, and while the assassin is stiff on the bed beside him, the way Bucky is looking at him lets Steve know he’s not… he’s not going to pull away from him. “’Specially now. I promise… it’ll all be okay… I can talk to Sam and Tasha.” He lets his eyes slipped closed despite himself, taking a long, shuddering, rackety breath that sounds a lot worse than it feels. “They know how I feel about you.”

Bucky is quiet for so long that Steve thinks he might be resting, too, and Steve lets himself start to drift towards the dark. Bucky’s thumb has started circling Steve’s knuckles, reassuring, warm, and Steve sinks very slowly to lean on his shoulder. Still not really… comfortable, obviously. But Bucky was staying. It was progress. This could work.

“… How do you feel about me, Steve?” Bucky asks, very quietly, and Steve turns his head a little, pressing his nose into Bucky’s shoulder.

“I love you, Buck. No matter what,” he mumbles, squeezing his hand, even when Bucky seems to automatically lock up. “No matter _what_ ,” he reiterates, and then he is gone, drifting away in a dreamless sleep, buoyed by hope.

 

\--

 

Bucky says he’s going to the restroom when his jostling briefly rouses Steve.

Steve holds tighter to his hand, and Bucky laughs, quietly, almost sickly, too. “Gotta piss, Steve,” he says, and Steve relents, grumbling and sinking into the warm space Buck leaves behind.

As he passes, Bucky carefully drapes the blanket back over Steve’s body from where he’d let it fall off after to trying to get Bucky to stay.

But not before he briefly kisses two of his flesh fingers and touches the wound on Steve’s calf, so gently Steve just groans a little and wriggles. “Hurry back, jerk,” he slobbers, and Bucky feels his heart thud.

 _I love you, Buck_.

Bucky waits until he drifts back off.

He leaves, only just barely remembering to slip past Clint Barton on the way out.

 

\--

 

Steve cries and he’s not ashamed to admit it.

Bucky had been taken from him, before.

Now he’d left of his volition. He was gone. He had seen Steve laying there, loving him, wanting him, and he’d still left. This was his choice.

Steve wonders what he’d done wrong. What choice he had made to wreck this, what words he’d said to scare him away. What he’d done to make Bucky think they couldn’t work this out.

He feels worse than he ever has. More than before he’d fallen asleep, more than when he’d been sick when he was small, more even than when Bucky had fallen off the train in the first place. Because then, Bucky had slipped from his grip.

Now he’d run from it.

The pillow is soaking wet when Steve decides this isn’t going to stop him. He’s still going to go after Bucky, he’s still going to do everything in his power to convince him that they can make it work. They can do this, together. Because even though Bucky had just ripped him to shreds, Steve knows that Bucky would never try to hurt him intentionally. He would _never_ try to do this just to hurt Steve.

Bucky thought he was a danger. He thought Sam and Natasha would pose a threat. Wouldn’t want him there. He maybe thought _he_ was dangerous to Steve, to the others. That… that… that if he couldn’t remember everything that Steve wouldn’t _want_ him there.

Steve had to prove him wrong.

He had to.

It’s 7 pm and Sam hasn’t texted back yet. Steve wipes his face and sits up in bed, wondering if he still has the energy right now to worry.

…

Yep. Turned out he did.

Steve knows that Sam, Tasha, and Clint (who probably wouldn’t still be guarding him if the other two were in real danger, right? Right? Not that Steve knew Clint’s whereabouts anyway… sigh) are a team all their own. Sure, Captain America usually leads the charge, but the three of them are really formidable all on their own.

They don’t _need_ Steve, especially with how small the London squad of Hydra was, right?

But what if they did?

What if they were kidnapped and strung up somewhere and being tortured, all because Steve hadn’t maybe thought to _guard his damn legs with the stupid shield_.

Worrying about his friends, at least, is enough to put him off thinking about Bucky.

Both options only make him feel sicker, which. Great.

Steve sinks into bed and tries to distract himself with the television, which mostly just goes _wah wah waaah wah wah wah wah_ at him, Peanuts style (yeah, he knew the Peanuts). So he tries going back to sleep, feeling exhausted after all that crying anyway.

Finally, Steve pulls out his phone, figuring he might as well use the free WiFi, his head pounding and knowing he could take more medicine but also _never wanting to take medicine again_.

For 45 minutes, Captain America plays DragonVale and Angry Birds on his phone, until the little green pigs started reminding him of Hydra soldiers and the angry red bird starts sounding, amazingly, like Bucky mid battle cry.

He is about to throw the phone across the room when Sam _finally_ texts back.

It’s an attachment, says the little banner over the top of the massacred pigs, and Steve frowns before tapping it.

What he sees makes his heart stop.

It’s a picture, blurry, but legible, of Bucky, holding up both hands and making pleading eyes at the person holding the camera.

Two seconds later, the message below comes through.

**sam: found ur boy**

Steve feels his heart leap and thud again, and tears form in the corners of his eyes.

**sam: well technically he found us**

**sam: and saved our asses**

**sam: U HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO IM GOING TO KICK UR ASS AND DONT GET ME STARTED ON TASHA**

And when, an hour later, Natasha, Sam, Clint, and Bucky all walk slowly into the hotel room, the three former looking befuddled and the latter looking alarmingly repentant, Steve thinks he is one hundred percent willing to take that ass kicking.

Any goddamn day of the week.

**Author's Note:**

> *skids in 20 minutes late holding a Starbucks*
> 
> WOW THIS REALLY GOT AWAY FROM ME. I LITERALLY FINISHED THIS FIVE MINUTES BEFORE IT WAS DUE AHAHAHAUHAUA.
> 
> And not because I didn't try to write it before. I did. I so did. It was just. Very. Very. Determined to make me self-conscious about it. I couldn't find the right place to begin, the right place to start, worried I was getting too wordy (and then evidently gave up on not being wordy THIS IS WAYYYYY too long I'm so sorry lorax)... it just fought me the entire time.
> 
> There's about three different versions of this fic on my laptop. Two of them involve Stebe listening to "Bye Bye Bye" by N-Sync in a hilarious meta joke I REALLY wanted to make in this fic… but alas. Some other day, some other fic.
> 
> PLUS this is the first time I've ever written Steve and Bucky. So there's that.
> 
> Mostly, I wanted to do this challenge to make myself write again, put myself on a time schedule, and have a ready and willing prompt. And, I did, at least get it finished! Hooray!
> 
> I did not have time to go through and edit this, and have no clue how to find a beta (help) so any mistakes are entirely my own.
> 
> I hope you liked it, lorax!! :D
> 
> \--
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://sebastianstuns.tumblr.com) and cry with me about these two.


End file.
